Quality Assurance in Clinical Labs

CODEX has twenty years of experience in the distribution of Diamex reference samples to Analytical Laboratories, Transfusion Centers and Pathological Anatomy. By analysing reference samples, Laboratories can check the deviation between the measurements obtained from their instruments and the expected measurements.

In 2013 CODEX needed to develop an application to manage and track the provision of reference samples, gather the measurements carried out by each Laboratory on such samples, calculate specific quality-assurance statistics and graphs quantifying deviations and highlighting their trend.

Taking advantage of the Livebase platform, a first version of the application was modelled, generated and deployed in a few days, allowing CODEX to register their Laboratories and their machinery, and to record shipments of reference samples. Laboratories could also authenticate on the application, enter and manage the measurements made on reference samples.

Since its first version was released in production, the application has recorded and is still managing over 500 thousand measurements of 200 types from 160 machineries in 71 laboratories.

After a successful testing period, additional functionality was coded in java and plugged into the generated application to automatically import measurements from machinery at the Labs via internet connections, to highlight violations of the Westgard Rules and to allow Laboratories to annotate and manage of incorrect measures. Additional functionality has been plugged in later, to generate parametric Levey Jennings charts, Six-Sigma charts, inter- and intra-laboratory PDF reports.